One Night Only: Game Previews for August 5th
¡Llama ya!
Featured Game
Cleveland (9) at Texas (8) | 20:05 ET
• Tonight marks Ubaldo Jimenez’s (7) debut for the Cleveland Indians, after they (i.e. Cleveland) traded four minor leaguers (including top-100 prospects Drew Pomeranz and Alex White) to Colorado for the right-hander.
• If you’re the sort of person who’d care to read analysis about this sort of thing, you can do that at this very site.
• Regard: work by Eric Seidman, Steve Slowinski, and FanGraphs’ most handsome author.
• If you’re the sort of person who doesn’t care to read, we can dictate these same works to you over the phone.
• Just call 1-900-Hot-Nerd. Nerds are standing by.*
*Don’t do that and, no, they’re not.
Watch: Texas Television (with the radio call by KESN’s Eric Nadel, if possible).
Also Playing
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.5.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Leake | CIN | 7 | 7 | 7 | 1 | 8 | CHN | Ryan Dempster | 14:20 |
| Aaron Harang | SD | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | PIT | Jeff Karstens | 19:05 |
| Brad Mills* | TOR | 5 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 5 | BAL | Tommy Hunter* | 19:05 |
| Tim Hudson | ATL | 6 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 9 | NYN | R.A. Dickey | 19:10 |
| Bartolo Colon | NYA | 7 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 7 | BOS | Jon Lester | 19:10 |
| Guillermo Moscoso | OAK | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 5 | TB | Jeff Niemann | 19:10 |
| Jake Westbrook | STL | 4 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 9 | FL | Anibal Sanchez | 19:10 |
| Ubaldo Jimenez | CLE | 7 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | TEX | Derek Holland | 20:05 |
| Yovani Gallardo | MIL | 7 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 2 | HOU | J.A. Happ | 20:05 |
| Mark Buehrle | CHA | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 3 | MIN | Nick Blackburn | 20:10 |
| Rick Porcello | DET | 5 | 4 | 7 | 7 | 9 | KC | Felipe Paulino | 20:10 |
| Jordan Zimmermann | WAS | 8 | 4 | 7 | 4 | 9 | COL | Juan Nicasio | 20:40 |
| Chad Billingsley | LAN | 6 | 3 | 5 | 7 | 5 | AZ | Josh Collmenter | 21:40 |
| Jason Vargas | SEA | 3 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 6 | LAA | Jered Weaver | 22:05 |
| Vance Worley | PHI | 5 | 3 | 4 | 6 | 3 | SF | Jonathan Sanchez | 22:15 |
NERD represents an attempt to anticipate the watchability of a game for the baseballing enthusiast.
To learn more about Pitcher NERD, click here and scroll down a little.
To learn more about latest Team NERD, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
Transcendent photo courtesy Jason’s House N Pet Sitting.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Brett Lawrie debut tonight!!1!!!1111!
Actually, that — combined with it being Tommy Hunter’s debut for his new team and Brad Mills’ second start of the season — certainly makes that game more interesting.
Watch? I’d guess Toronto TV with Jays’ radio, if possible.
Lawrie debut will be great entertainment. Surprised the NERD doesn’t pop the sox/yanks for a higher score since they are two of the three best records in the league, and one team’s ace is on the mound. I mean, is there a more watchable game tonight, assuming you don’t have an anti-big market/I hate the sox-yanks rivalry bias?
Also, everytime I see NYN or NYA my brain shuts down. Always thought NYM and NYY made so much more sense.
And CHN CHA is even worse. If my inner monologue ever said “Chicago National” or “New York American” I would punch it in the face.
The thing is, both of those teams are basically LOCKS (like, >95%) to make the playoffs, so the stakes aren’t particularly high.
Also, speaking personally, the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry — post-2004, post-2007 — just doesn’t have the same energy as it did before. I remember, growing up a Sox fan, HATING the Yankees. Is that still a thing that Sox fans do anymore?
Also, you’re a grump.
Ok, you’re right on mostly all accounts, including the grump part. The rivalry has a completely different complexion than it used to, but that’s interesting to me in and of itself (of course, I grew up a sox fan, so… yea. I can see the dichotomy not being as interesting to everyone else). As for the watchability factor, here’s the other side of the coin…
You have two of the best 5 offenses in the past 13 years (granted the rest of the top 5 are other Sox/Yanks teams) – with the Red Sox at 120 wRC+ tied for the best. I didn’t even look further back (I stopped at the 97 Ms at 119 wRC+), they could be on pace to set some modern records, league adjusted.
In Fenway. The Sox have spanked the Yanks all year. In a dead heat at the top of the perennial best division in baseball. With Lester on the mound.
Just saying, strip out all Red Sox/Yankees from that description, and you still have a helluva game. Sure, it’s not going to have playoff odds implications, but it has division winning/home field advantage implications, which is pretty close.
Anywhoo, if you like baseball, I have no idea how this game isn’t an 11 on your personal NERD scale. Fix your damn system, Cistulli. Grumble.
I don’t hate the yankees any less than I did in 2003.
I’m a happier fan in general, but the yankees thing hasn’t changed at all.
I am not a Yankee or Sox fan. As such, this game is unwatchable. It’s August, and both teams already locked up a spot; snoozefest.
Yup, total snoozefest. Good call.
Yanks-Sox still rates highest (tied) for the day. And yeah, that’s the one I’ll watch at that time.
Phils-Giants next to last rating? Worley is auditioning for a spot on the playoff roster. Sanchez coming back from injury. NLCS rematch, and a potential preview? Gotta be rated more than a 4!
I understand the scoring system doesn’t like teams that aren’t in a race (Phils)… and prefers “ace” pitchers… but as you move past the midpoint of the season, I’d think you’d want to watch potential playoff matchups like these.
At a certain point, you need to weigh in team performance, and that weight should slope upwards as the season progresses… and be magnified when two top teams are playing.
(no offense to Brett Lawrie and all…)
Man, I was already getting all hot and bothered at the prospect of a Fangraphs 900 number. Don’t tease a person like that.
Tribe pulled of the riskiest (BUT BEST) deal in recent MLB memory. GO TRIBE!!!! lokks like the Lee, Sabathia, Westbrook drals paid off. hot half our team now from those deals! (LaPorta, Brantley, Masterson, Santana, ect.)
I think the riskiest deal was the White Sox acquiring Alex Rios.
Well, it’s obvious that NERD has its limitations. I think the relationship we recognize between stats and scouting definitely exists for NERD, too. It only measures certain things — and as long as we remember that, that’s good.
Of course, it’s hard to underestimate the import of the CLE-TEX game, too. One team (Cleveland) sits unexpectedly just three games out of first place; the other team (Texas) sits unexpectedly just one game in front of its next-closest divisional competitor. And then add in Jimenez’s debut, obviously…
Anyway, it’s a good problem to have tonight — deciding which game to watch, I mean.
Well… you ARE extremely handsome… so… there’s that.
And…jeez… anyone could see NY-BOS and PHI-SF are good to watch.
So… yes… we need NERD to help with the rest of the games.
And, it does that well. Very well actually.
NO complaints about the CLE-TEX matchup!
I’m a little late with the compliment, but I appreciate the “watch:” suggestion added to the feature game.
If you tell us to listen to the radio guys, why does it matter who the TV announcers are? Is it just the most handsome pairing of the home and away announcers since we won’t hear what they say anyway?
What you’re saying is both obvious and true. I guess… what I want to say is, “Watch the game with the Texas Radio audio feed on top of it.”
Maybe one thing that confused me is how — on MLB.TV for the PS3, at least — you can’t have one team’s video feed and the other team’s audio. So, if you were to choose Cleveland Television, you couldn’t access Texas Radio from there.
There are actually maybe cases where this would be an issue. At some of the ballparks with the straigt-on center-field camera angle, the away team will use an off-center center-field camera. I don’t recall WHERE I saw this happening, but I know I did.
Of course, the Texas camera is pretty bad anyway, so the video feed is (was) of minimal consequence in this case.
Is the age factor in NERD a sort of inverse bell curve? I know I find, for instance, pitchers like Tim Hudson (and, of course, Moyer up until a year ago) more interesting on account of their Distinguished years.